Plug-ins being removed/disabled without user initiating?

[ericb7799]

Mac OSX El Capitan.
Have been running Audacity on my Mac for a while now, have been using 2.1.2 and sometimes 2.1.3.alpha (don’t have exact build with me now). Recently I noticed some odd behavior with particular plug-ins, in this case its the extra Steve Daulton plug-ins for Nyquist? The files are in the group with StudioFadeOut.ny tremolo.ny, I believe these are additional downloads and not with the shipped version.

I use the Studio Fade Out and Tremolo all the time. I noticed that without running the plug-in manager, all of a sudden I can no longer see any of the Steve Daulton plug-ins. All the rest of the Steve Harris and other NyQuist and .so plug-ins are showing and working fine.

I went to add/remove effects, saw that (at least) some of those plug-ins was showing as disabled. Tried enabling them, and they never get added back to the effects menu. Now they do not even show up in the plug-in effect manager. Looked in all the typical plug-in locations and then went as far as to re-download them all again, and I copied them to the User Audio Lib and User Application Support audacity plugin folder. Copied them to the system library to both Audacity Application support and Audio Lib. Then for good measure, since installed from zip and not .dmg installer, I have another Audacity folder in the Applications Dir, so copied them there also, both to plug-ins and NyQuist folders.

Then tried to delete the plug-in and Audacity config files and rebooted, then went through the whole process to add all my other plug-ins back again. and got every thing added fine except those Steve Daulton ones. So…

No matter what I have done, I cannot get those plug-ins to even show up in the effect plugin manager or the main effect menu. I now have them copied to at least 5 locations and they are not getting installed/recognized. I had one instance last night using 2.1.2 where I looked at the effects menu and they were showing up, without me adding them . I ran them a couple of times and they were working fine. Shut down the project and quit Audacity and rebooted. After the reboot, re-launched Audacity 2.1.2 and checked the effect menu and they are gone again. Tried running plug-in manager and they are not showing up. Files are still in the locations where I put them… Tried it with 2.1.3 alpha and same story.

How did they get disabled in the first place, and why aren’t they being added back to the effect menu?

[steve]

Are “High Pass Filter” and “Low Pass Filter” also missing?

In “Preferences > Effects > Effect Options”
Which option is selected for “Effects in menus are:”

[ericb7799]

I usually have them listed by “Publisher and Effects Name”


I’m attaching a couple screen shots from the Mac vs my Ubuntu. All the Steve Dalton plugins are missing on the Mac. My Windows and Ubuntu systems have no problem with those plugins, just affecting the Mac El Capitan version.

[ericb7799]

here is my version on OS X.

[steve]

@ericb7799

All the Steve Dalton plugins are missing on the Mac. My Windows and Ubuntu systems have no problem with those plugins, just affecting the Mac El Capitan version.

Are “High Pass Filter” and “Low Pass Filter” also missing?

Try grouping the effects by type. Do you have any Nyquist plug-ins listed?

[Gale_Andrews]

If you want to test alpha builds, I suggest you keep them updated.

StudioFadeOut.ny and tremolo.ny are shipped in Audacity’s Plug-ins folder so are not additional downloads. They are Nyquist plugins, so it’s recommended you put them in the locations mentioned here: http://manual.audacityteam.org/man/effect_menu.html#nyquist_effects.

It’s possible if you are going from one Audacity version to another that shipped plugins may get disabled. It is a very rare “moonphase” problem. Quitting Audacity, deleting audacity.cfg and pluginregistry.cfg then re-enabling plugins in Add / Remove Plug-ins “should” fix it.


Gale

[ericb7799]

ericb7799 wrote:
All the Steve Dalton plugins are missing on the Mac. My Windows and Ubuntu systems have no problem with those plugins, just affecting the Mac El Capitan version.

Are “High Pass Filter” and “Low Pass Filter” also missing?

Try grouping the effects by type. Do you have any Nyquist plug-ins listed?

As far as I can tell, comparing OSX to my Windows or Ubuntu, I seem to have all other plug-ins enabled and working. Steve, which manufacturer would be listed for the HIgh Pass and Low Pass Filters you are referring to? I have a couple listed that way, more specifically with manufacturer. But as far as I can tell those plug-ins are working. I have GLAME Highpass, Low Pass, etc and another listing for High Pass Low Pass under another person/manufacturer. When I left for work this morning, I had changed the effects listing to “Type” and then enabled everything listing as “New” in the plug-in manager. The plugins I am missing were not listed anywhere on the effects list, not in New, All or Disabled. Just not listed at all.

and it was runnning the Plug-in manager and was in the process of verifying/registering my Waves effects.

All other NyQuist plug-ins show up and work as they should.

StudioFadeOut.ny and tremolo.ny are shipped in Audacity’s Plug-ins folder so are not additional downloads. They are Nyquist plugins, so it’s recommended you put them in the locations mentioned here: > Effect Menu - Audacity Manual> .

Gale, I thought so, just started questioning that when those particular ones disappeared. I went into Overkill mode I guess, and yes I do have the NyQuist effects also in that folder. I’m not concerned about duplicate plug-ins, so I just copied all the plug-in stuff to pretty much every place I see listed for OSX. I was just trying everything I could, so I had also copied them into the Plug-ins folders as well as having them in the NyQuist folder.

I also notice that I do not get LV2 or LADASPA folders in my Audio Library or Application Support Audacity folders. I am looking at both System and User Libraries and went ahead and just created those folders in the same Audio Library directory with the VST, VST3 and Components folders . I also made a NyQuist folder there and had copied them there as well.

As I said I also have the Audacity App with a separate Audacity folder in the Applications Directory and all the plug-ins are copied there as well.


I think part of the problem is relating to some sort of plist issue. I keep noticing that when I try to play a .wav file from my desktop on the Mac, and I rt click to bring up the menu I see under “Open with” it will show me multiple versions of Audacity. It does not always show the same listings for some reason as well, but usually I see one listed as “default” and then others under that. Over the past year I’ve had tried different “alpha” and “nightly” builds due to issues with the default version and WxWidgets issues. That topic is discussed in one of my earlier posts here: wxWidgets crashes_third-party plugins

I’m not sure exactly how I “update” the app with OSX. I’m using this particular version as it was just one of the many I had that seemed to have the least problems, especially related the the WxWidgets post. I usually would have gotten any “alpha” or “nightly” builds from your Nightly listings for OSX and had them in .zip folders. I’ve since moved those I’m not using off the MAC drive and have them in Dropbox and/or on an external drive. I noticed that when rt clicking and Audio file and using “Open with” as mentioned above I will see listed (additional to the default Audacity app) pretty much every version of Audacity I’ve used going as far back as 2.1.0. Even though those files are no longer on the actual Mac drive, it seems to be relinking to where ever I had moved them to. So it looks like its linking older versions of Audacity, even those that the files are in my Dropbox folder, for example.
Usually when I remove one version for another, I would re-zip the Audacity folder from the Applications Directory, copy it to dropbox or external drive and Replace it with whatever version of Audacity I was “upgrading” to.

I have a listing under the main “Applications” directory on Mac the has the actual “Audacity App” listed, outside of any folder and then it also has the Audacity folder, where the plug-ins, NyQuist and Audacity manual are located. Inside the folder there is also the listing for the “Audacity App”. It looks like that currently the one outside the folder is what is show in the screenshot posted earlier, and appears to be the same one inside the Audacity folder. I had moved all other versions off the Mac Drive.

Whatever version of the Audacity App I put outside the “Audacity” folder in the Applications directory will list as the “default” version of Audacity. That is the version launched if I just double click on a saved .AUP file. By rt clicking on the .AUP or an audio file I can choose to launch with another version of Audacity, but I never have two versions launched or running at the same time.

In the past I had had a separate folder in the Applications directory with an “Audacity_Nightly” folder that had the other version of Audacity that I was using (either an older version or a newer alpha/nightly version. I was trying to clean all that up, and just have the version of Audacity I was using in the Applications Directory, when I noticed the plug-ins from Steve Daulton go missing.

[ericb7799]

It’s possible if you are going from one Audacity version to another that shipped plugins may get disabled. It is a very rare “moonphase” problem. Quitting Audacity, deleting audacity.cfg and pluginregistry.cfg then re-enabling plugins in Add / Remove Plug-ins “should” fix it.

I did exactly that when I couldn’t get the Steve Daulton ones to show up anymore. So far it’s not resolving or fixing that issue. Are there any other cfg /plist type files that anyone knows of that may be contributing to my issue? With many other audio problems on Mac, in Logic Pro X for example, deleting some specific plist files and rebooting would fix those issues.

[Gale_Andrews]

@ericb7799

ericb7799 wrote:
All the Steve Dalton plugins are missing on the Mac. My Windows and Ubuntu systems have no problem with those plugins, just affecting the Mac El Capitan version.

Are “High Pass Filter” and “Low Pass Filter” also missing?

Try grouping the effects by type. Do you have any Nyquist plug-ins listed?

As far as I can tell, comparing OSX to my Windows or Ubuntu, I seem to have all other plug-ins enabled and working. Steve, which manufacturer would be listed for the HIgh Pass and Low Pass Filters you are referring to?

“Dominic Mazzoni”.

@ericb7799

I think part of the problem is relating to some sort of plist issue. I keep noticing that when I try to play a .wav file from my desktop on the Mac, and I rt click to bring up the menu I see under “Open with” it will show me multiple versions of Audacity. It does not always show the same listings for some reason as well, but usually I see one listed as “default” and then others under that. Over the past year I’ve had tried different “alpha” and “nightly” builds due to issues with the default version and WxWidgets issues.

You can clear duplicates arising from running different Audacity versions by quitting Audacity and deleting “pluginregistry.cfg”.

You can try clearing the “Open With” menu of old, duplicated applications thus: Remove Duplicates from the “Open With” Right-Click Menu in Mac OS X.

@ericb7799

I’m not sure exactly how I “update” the app with OSX.

Just regularly visit http://www.audacity.homerow.net/index.php?dir=mac/ and get the latest version from the top of the page. But you only need to do this if you want to test Audacity or if you want the fix for a specific Audacity bug that is now fixed in our source code.


Gale

[Gale_Andrews]

@ericb7799

It’s possible if you are going from one Audacity version to another that shipped plugins may get disabled. It is a very rare “moonphase” problem. Quitting Audacity, deleting audacity.cfg and pluginregistry.cfg then re-enabling plugins in Add / Remove Plug-ins “should” fix it.

I did exactly that when I couldn’t get the Steve Daulton ones to show up anymore. So far it’s not resolving or fixing that issue.

If you “Group effects by type” in Audacity Preferences, how many plugins are listed under the two “Nyquist” items in the Effect menu?


Gale

[cyrano]

@ericb7799

… and it was runnning the Plug-in manager and was in the process of verifying/registering my Waves effects.

I seem to remember these don’t work with Audacity.

[Gale_Andrews]

@cyrano

@ericb7799

… and it was runnning the Plug-in manager and was in the process of verifying/registering my Waves effects.

I seem to remember these don’t work with Audacity.

Waves v9 should be OK in current Audacity on both Mac and Windows.


Gale

[ericb7799]

Sorry for the delay in my posting back, but problem still exists. I think I have identified some parts of the problem but why not showing up in effects menu is confusing. I have recently had this Mac replaced and due to an issue with possible corruption in the Time Machine Backup I was told by Apple to not restore from Time Machine backup but manually copy some files and directories from my old Mac before replacing it with the new one and then manually copy those back to the new MAC. One of those was the User Library. I must have at least followed that advice because what I found on one of my external drives was a complete copy of the Library. This is a large external drive (4TB) that has been partitioned into appearing like (2) 2 TB drives. Currently one partition is currently dedicated to Time Machine backups with the other 2 TB partition being used a general storage.

So what I have noticed is that it appears to be linking to that copy of the library on the external disk. For Example, choosing from the effects, lets use example of Steve Harris Crossfade plugin, looks like it’s showing multiple instances of that plug-in in all the directories I previously mentioned plus a listing for this Library Directory on the external drive as well…
I am thinking that some permission or access preference is set so that those files in Library would always be used over the other locations. Any one know if that is the case here?

I am also thinking I may just delete it, and hope there is nothing else any other app is linking there. I’ve already copied it’s contents to the Library on the new Mac.


But that still leaves the issue with the Steve Daulton plug-ins. They still do not show when trying to add effects. It appears to just be the Steve Daulton plug-ins and all other plug-ins are working.

BTW: Waves V9 works pretty well in Audacity, generally. With some exceptions, Waves Tune doesn’t work at all, but most notably the Greg Wells (MIxCentric, VoiceCentric) series has an issue where once the plug in is launched and then the audio is played, it will sound horrible, choppy, scratchy and bubbling/gurgling sounds. But if you were to be so brave as to ignore that and still hit “Apply”, with the correct settings applied it will sound great after the plug in is closed.
Waves not much help in trying to fix that, they won’t even mention Audacity in a sentence much less help me with it. But they said that those plug-ins are actually more like chains and are trying to run many different things in the background. Evidently one of those has some sort of conflict with Audacity or they way Apple Core audio is working on Audacity. I don’t think that problem is isolated to Mac, however, because I’ve seen the same thing happen on Windows 10 with those same plug-ins. Otherwise the Waves plug-ins seem to work pretty great. Up to you if you want to shell out the cash for those though, they ain’t cheap.

Last FYI just general info for anyone… 32 Lives has issued a new beta that now includes VST plug-ins, previously only worked with AU. So anyone with old 32 bit only VST plug-ins maybe able to bring them back to life for use in Logic Pro and other 64 bit only DAW/Editors. I don’t think would have any affect on Audacity, good or bad, as I understand Audacity only uses 32 bit versions anyway. http://www.soundradix.com/products/32-lives/

[steve]

If you “Group effects by type” in Audacity Preferences, how many plugins are listed under the two “Nyquist” items in the Effect menu?

[ericb7799]

Will try that and post back the results when I get home from work later today.

[cyrano]

Just an idea:

If you have copied over the contents of your user folder, some items could have the wrong user.

The easiest way to fix that, is to select your user folder in the Finder and to click “Get info”. In the resulting dialog box, there’s a check box to take ownership of these files and to do that recursively.

I wonder why Apple don’t trust their Time machine?

[ericb7799]

I wonder why Apple don’t trust their Time machine? >

It looks like starting in Oct 2015 users who upgraded OSX to El Capitan from earlier OSX versions had a number of problems. In my case upgrading from Yosemite to El Capitan I found that Time Machine would no longer backup anymore. It was always complaining about the disk being full, despite nearly 1 TB in free drive space. What would happen is that Time Machine would never complete a full backup and would only show maybe one completed backup (if you were lucky) and then would stop backing up. It was also failing to delete old backups if your disk was indeed full. Evidently there is some change in the file compression level or something like that.
Apple elevated my case until some Tier 3 tech support told me that users were quietly being told that they should be prepared to have to wipe and reformat their Time Machine drives and that they should not try to keep the Time Machine backups from the earlier OSX version. So they had me completely wipe and reform my drive with the HFS+ Journaling enabled. He told me that I should do a restore on my existing OSx version (Yosemite) and then disable time machine and remove the disk (USB attached disk in my case) prior to installing El Capitan. Then either replace the drive or reformat to HFS+journaling and reset up Time Machine to the new or reformatted disk. So according to them, so matter if you even delete all the old Time Machine backups from Yosemite you may still have problems and that you should set up time machine on El Capitan from scratch with nothing else from earlier OSx. He also mentioned that the disk to be used for Time Machine should have nothing else on it. NO storage or anything and that the disk should be 100% allocated for Time Machine only.

All sounds contrary to reason to have Time Machine and when you do this you will have a period with zero safety net, no backups to go back to, until Time Machine has sucessfully run with El Capitan. Unfortunately, my issue is only one of the things that can happen if try to take over your old Time Machine files.

Timemachine Auto Backup not working on El Capitan ?

http://macperformanceguide.com/blog/2015/20151015_1404-OSX_ElCapitan-TimeMachine.html

[cyrano]

Thanks for the info. I agree, in this case it shouldn’t be called backup. The phrase “an accident waiting to happen”, springs to my mind

I erase my TM disk every time I start a new OS. But I’m kind of religious when it comes to backups. Important data is archived to two other media anyhow.

And I haven’t installed EC yet, as my EC test machine died. Broken SATA cable, another ridiculous Apple exclusive…

Oh, well, there will be another Apple file system in 2017. APFS. It inherits some of the good things ZFS promised. Unfortunately, ZFS died in the hands of it’s new owner, Oracle.

[ericb7799]

@steve

If you “Group effects by type” in Audacity Preferences, how many plugins are listed under the two “Nyquist” items in the Effect menu?

Ok Steve, I’m really confused now… as you can see in my screenshots I’m attaching to this message… I don’t have ANY Nyqvist listing in effects menu when grouped that way.

[ericb7799]

consolidated older versions of Audacity into a folder and renamed it but left it in applications dir. installed 2.1.3 ver from nightly site Gale posted> ran add effects but never saw any re nyquist. but just checked after launching and looks like its fixed.